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WILLIAM  SIDNEY  PORTER 


'X. 


0.  HENRY 

A  MEMORIAL  ESSAY 


BY 


ARCHIBALD  HENDERSON 


O.  HENRY 

A  MEMORIAL   ESSAY 


The  New  North  State,  which  has  but  recently  sent  a 
great  publisher  and  man  of  letters  as  ambassador  to  the 
Court  of  St.  James,  a  scholar  and  man  of  letters  as  aca 
demic  ambassador  to  the  German  people,  mourns  the  loss 
of  America's  greatest  short-story  writer  of  our  day, 
familiarly  and  affectionately  remembered  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land  under  the  pseudonym 
of  "O.  Henry."  It  is  this  same  North  Carolina  of  the 
new  era  in  literary  culture  which  has  given  to  America 
the  memorable  trio  of  poets:  John  Henry  Boner,  whose 
verse  won  the  unstinted  praise  of  great  poets;  John 
Charles  McNeill,  the  "Scotchman,"  enshrined  in  the  hearts 
of  thousands  and  now  memorialized  in  deathless  bronze ; 
and  Henry  Jerome  Stockard,  master  in  the  high  and  deli 
cate  art  of  the  sonnet.  It  is  only  fitting  that  the  people  of 
this  New  North  State  should  express  in  enduring  form  the 
perfect  tribute  to  the  native  genius  who  evoked  the  laugh 
ter  of  a  nation  and  touched  the  heart  of  a  world. 


No  one  locality,  with  local  or  provincial  pride,  is  en 
titled  to  boast  that  from  its  soil  and  out  of  its  life  was 
the  artist,  "O.  Henry,"  created  and  moulded.  In  an 
unique  sense,  his  stories  are  a  part  of  all  that  he  had  seen, 
of  all  whom  he  had  known,  of  all  the  strange  and  familiar 

[3] 


places  that  he  had  visited  in  his  nomadic  wanderings. 
North  Carolina  has  the  honor  of  being  the  State  of  his 
birth  and  his  last  resting  place.  Greensboro,  his  birth 
place,  cherishes  the  memory  of  this  son  of  Guilford,  born 
on  September  the  eleventh,  eighteen  hundred  and  sixty- 
two.  His  father,  Dr.  Algernon  Sidney  Porter,  was  a  physi 
cian  of  skill  and  distinction ;  his  mother,  Mary  Jane  Vir 
ginia  Swaim,  was  a  devotee  of  literature,  and  certain  of  her 
poems  appeared  in  The  Greensboro  Patriot,  at  one  time  edi 
ted  by  her  father,  William  Swaim.  His  grandmother  on  the 
paternal  side  was  a  sister  of  Governor  Jonathan  Worth  of 
North  Carolina,  who  once  said,  in  a  private  letter,  that  so  far 
as  he  had  ever  heard,  there  was  "not  a  blemish  spot  upon 
any  of  the  race  as  to  integrity  and  honor."  Left  motherless 
at  the  age  of  three,  he  was  reared  by  his  aunt,  Miss  Eve- 
lena  Porter,  a  woman  of  powerful  individuality  and  striking 
ability  as  a  teacher.  With  the  exception  of  a  term  or  two 
at  graded  school,  young  Porter  received  his  early  education 
under  the  tutelage  of  his  "Aunt  Lena";  and  the  books 
habitually  read  to  him  by  his  aunt  during  the  recess  hour 
went  far  to  develop  his  taste  for  reading  and  love  of  good 
books.  The  school  children,  who  gathered  at  Miss  Lena's 
on  Friday  nights,  customarily  indulged  in  a  game  of  story 
telling,  one  of  the  party  beginning  the  story  and  each  in 
turn  taking  up  the  thread  of  the  narrative  until  it  was  con 
cluded.  It  is  not  fanciful  to  surmise  that,  in  this  innocent 
and  amusing  game,  his  talent  for  narrative  and  his  idio 
syncrasy  for  the  unexpected  denouement  first  found  its 
original  impulse.  After  the  thorough  schooling  with  its 
spur  to  literary  aspiration  given  him  by  his  aunt,  young 
Porter  attended  the  academy ;  but  in  the  light  of  the  man's 
own  Bohemian  nature,  we  may  be  sure  that  he  learned 

[4] 


more  from  his  private  reading  than  from  his  more  rigidly 
prescribed  studies.  "I  did  more  reading  between  my 
thirteenth  and  my  nineteenth  years,"  he  once  naively  con 
fessed,  "  than  I  have  done  in  all  the  years  since.  And  my 
taste  was  much  better  then.  I  used  to  read  nothing  but 
classics.  Burton's  'Anatomy  of  Melancholy'  and  Lane's 
translation  of  the  'Arabian  Nights '  were  my  favorites." 

After  his  days  of  schooling  were  over,  he  found  employ 
ment  as  prescription  clerk  in  the  drug  store  of  his  uncle, 
Clarke  Porter.  In  the  genial,  easy-going  ways  of  the  South, 
the  local  celebrities  frequented  the  drug  store  and  furnished 
young  Porter  with  innumerable  opportunities  for  observing 
many  rare  and  unique  types  of  humanity.  This  "thin,  dark- 
haired  boy  with  the  observant  eye "  cherished  through 
out  his  boyhood  days,  according  to  his  own  confession,  "an 
intense  desire  to  be  an  artist."  Though  he  never  became  a 
professional  cartoonist,  young  Porter  early  displayed  in  his 
pictures  of  local  scenes  and  celebrities  that  power  of 
minute  and  pointed  characterization  so  manifest  in  his 
literary  thumb-nail  sketches  in  later  years.  "  One  day," 
relates  Mr.  C.  D.  Benbow,  of  Greensboro,  "  a  farmer  walked 
into  the  drug  store  and  asked  for  Mr.  Clarke  Porter.  Will 
knew  the  man's  face  but  could  not  place  him.  Therefore, 
he  told  him  to  sit  down  and  wait  until  his  uncle  arrived.  The 
fellow  took  a  seat.  Will  went  to  the  rear  of  the  store  and 
made  a  likeness  of  him  so  that  he  could  show  it  to  his  uncle. 
On  returning,  after  the  caller  had  gone,  Mr.  Porter  ex 
amined  the  picture,  and  said,  'Why,  yes,  Will,  that  man 
sold  me  some  canteloupes  and  I  owe  him  fifty  cents.'  That 
was  the  sort  of  artist  he  was." 

"I  was  born  and  raised  in  No'th  Ca'lina  and  at  eigh 
teen  went  to  Texas  and  ran  wild  on  the  prairies.  Wild 

[5] 


yet,  but  not  so  wild  "—this  is  O.  Henry's  quaint  autobiogra 
phy.  When  in  March,  1881,  because  it  was  thought  the 
close  confinement  in  the  drug  store  was  undermining  his 
health,  he  joined  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  K.  Hall  on  their  journey 
to  Texas,  to  visit  their  sons,  Richard  and  Lee  Hall,  of  Texas- 
ranger  fame,  many  of  his  friends  thought  he  was  making 
a  great  mistake  to  turn  cowboy,  since  he  had  upon  him 
all  the  ear-marks  of  a  great  cartoonist.  The  loss  of  this 
jovial,  popular  boy  was  distinctly  felt.  He  had  endeared 
himself  to  many  friends  in  Greensboro  and  by  his  clever 
caricatures  and  dramatic  depiction  of  local  characters, 
had  contributed  greatly  to  the  gaiety  of  the  drug  store 
entourage. 

During  his  early  days  in  Texas,  this  slight,  pallid,  anae 
mic  boy,  taciturn,  facile  with  his  pen,  went  to  live  as  a 
member  of  the  family  of  Mr.  Richard  Hall  in  La  Salle 
County.  Through  association  with  the  cultured  Mrs.  Hall 
and  access  to  her  fine  library,  he  became  an  omnivorous 
reader— devouring  with  relish  light  and  classic  fiction,  his 
tory,  biography,  poetry,  science.  One  of  the  diversions  of 
those  days  was  a  minute  study  of  Webster's  Dictionary, 
whereby  he  laid  the  foundations  for  his  extensive  vocabu 
lary ;  and  in  secret  he  put  on  paper  stories  which  Mrs.  Hall 
pronounced  as  interesting  as  any  ever  written  by  Rider  Hag 
gard.  I  have  heard  one  of  his  relatives  relate  that  nothing 
delighted  Porter  so  much  as  to  "stump"  his  friends  on 
spelling — his  favorite  poser  being  tic  douloureux.  The 
Spanish  language  fascinated  him ;  and  within  a  short  time 
he  not  only  became  the  best  speaker  of  "  greaser  "  Spanish 
on  the  ranch,  but  also  learned  to  write  and  speak  pure 
Spanish.  Though  he  always  destroyed  his  stories,  he  was 
busy  with  his  pencil  and  sent  cartoons  back  to  his  friends 

[6] 


in  North  Carolina.  His  fame  as  an  illustrator  soon  reached 
the  ears  of  Mr.  John  Maddox,  who  persuaded  him  to  draw 
forty  illustrations  for  a  book  of  reminiscences  then  writing 
by  his  friend,  Mr.  Joe  Dixon,  a  man  of  wide  and  varied 
experience.  Seized  with  "  stage-fright "  Dixon  at  the  last 
moment  dropped  the  manuscript  of  his  book,  Carbonate 
Days,  into  the  Colorado  River  and  fled  to  the  wilds  of  the 
Rockies.  Regaining  courage,  Dixon  soon  returned  to  Aus 
tin  and,  to  placate  Mr.  Maddox,  wrote  a  burlesque  called 
"An  Arrested  Movement  in  Southern  Literature."  This 
skit,  which  was  also  illustrated  by  Porter,  described  with 
racy  humor  his  brief  career  as  a  novelist  and  the  irreparable 
loss  to  Southern  literature  in  the  destruction  of  the  manu 
script  of  Carbonate  Days. 

Shortly  afterwards,  Porter  went  to  Austin  to  live  with 
the  family  of  Mr.  Joe  Harrell ;  and  during  his  sojourn  was 
bookkeeper  in  Mr.  Harrell's  cigar  store.  In  the  autumn 
of  1885,  he  became  bookkeeper  for  Maddox  Brothers  and 
Anderson,  at  that  time  perhaps  the  leading  real  estate 
firm  in  Texas.  He  is  remembered  by  his  friends  in  Austin 
as  an  inveterate  story-teller;  and  the  tales  that  he  told 
were  quaint,  comical,  and  invariably  tipped  with  an 
unexpected  denouement.  One  of  his  friends  testified 
that  he  "lived  in  an  atmosphere  of  adventure  that  was 
the  product  of  his  own  imagination."  Once,  when  asked 
why  he  never  read  fiction,  Porter  replied :  "  It's  all  tame  as 
compared  with  the  romance  in  my  own  life."  In  1886  and 
for  several  years  thereafter  he  occupied  a  position  in  the 
State  Land  Office  as  assistant  compiling  draughtsman;  for  a 
time,  when  that  position  failed  him,  he  became  a  clerk  in  a 
drug  store ;  and  a  little  later  (1890)  he  became  paying  and 
receiving  teller  in  the  old  First  National  Bank  of  Austin. 

[7] 


During  his  incumbency  at  the  Land  Office,  he  made  a 
successful  investment  in  "  stray  land " ;  and  with  some 
($250.00)  of  the  money  thus  earned  he  purchased  of  W.  C. 
Brann  the  afterwards  notorious  magazine,  The  Iconoclast. 
Brann  bought  back  the  inimitable  name  after  only  two  issues 
of  The  Iconoclast  had  appeared  under  Porter's  editorship ; 
and  the  first  number  of  Porter's  rechristened  paper,  The 
Rolling  Stone,  was  published  in  Austin  on  April  28,  1894. 
This  paper,  which  flourished  during  the  years  1894  and  1895 
and  attained  a  circulation  of  fifteen  hundred  copies,  was  a 
comic  weekly  touching  off  current  events  and  instinct  with 
the  spirit  of  caricature  and  burlesque.  "  Dixie  "  Daniels, 
who  for  a  time  assisted  him  in  editing  it,  has  described  Por 
ter  as  one  of  the  most  versatile  men  he  had  ever  met — a  man 
"  who  could  write  remarkably  clever  stuff  under  all  cir 
cumstances  and  was  a  good  hand  at  sketching."  The 
satires  on  local  customs  and  institutions,  the  burlesques  on 
popular  novels,  notably  "  Tictocq,  the  Great  French  Detec 
tive  "  in  burlesque  of  "  Monsieur  Lecocq,"  which  is  ex 
cruciatingly  funny,  and  the  interviews  with  leading  politi 
cal  figures  of  the  day  are  characteristic  of  the  best  work 
of  Porter  during  this  period.  The  wit  and  cleverness  of 
the  paper  caught  the  attention  and  won  the  praise  of  such 
national  celebrities  as  Bill  Nye  and  John  Kendricks  Bangs. 
Political  attacks  upon  the  Callahan  administration  in  San 
Antonio,  into  which  Porter  allowed  himself  to  be  drawn, 
as  well  as  business  difficulties  in  which  he  became  in 
volved,  resulted  in  the  discontinuance  of  The  Rolling  Stone 
on  April  27, 1895. 

It  was  during  the  period  of  his  editorship  of  The  Rolling 
Stone  that  Porter  may  be  said  to  have  done  his  first  sustain 
ed  work  as  a  writer.  In  a  barn  in  his  back-yard,  which  he 

[8] 


O.  HENRY  AS  A  BABY  IN  GREENSBORO 


had  fitted  up  as  a  study,  he  spent  a  large  part  of  each  day 
reading  and  writing ;  and  when  this  barn  was  burned  in 
1912  there  went  up  in  flames  the  best  testimony  of  Porter's 
literary  tastes  of  that  period — a  library  of  more  than  a 
thousand  volumes. 

The  marriage  of  Porter  to  Miss  Athol  Estes  in  1887 — 
though  darkened  by  the  fear  of  the  young  girl's  mother,  Mrs. 
P.  G.  Roach,  that  she  had  inherited  the  tuberculosis  from 
which  Mr.  Estes  died— proved  to  be  a  happy  one.  In  Octo 
ber,  1895,  Porter  and  his  family  moved  to  Houston,  to  ac 
cept  a  position  on  the  Post  offered  him  by  the  editor,  Col. 
R.  M.  Johnston.  After  working  for  two  weeks  at  a  salary 
of  fifteen  dollars  a  week,  his  salary  was  increased  by  five 
dollars,  and  two  weeks  later  it  was  raised  to  twenty-five 
dollars  a  week — a  salary  which  he  himself  regarded  at  the 
time  as  "  quite  munificent."  The  first  title  of  his  column, 
"  Some  Postscripts  and  Pencillings,"  was  soon  abbreviated 
to  "  Some  Postscripts,"  under  which  title  his  writings  soon 
became  widely  read  and  praised.  Col.  Johnston  at  this  time 
remarked  to  him :  "  My  boy,  within  five  years  you'll  be  earn 
ing  a  hundred  dollars  a  week  on  a  New  York  newspaper." 

The  prosperity  came  to  an  abrupt  end.  Spurred  by  the 
touch  of  harsh  fortune  he  went  to  New  Orleans,  in  July, 
1896.  Here  he  worked  at  odd  jobs  and  felt  the  loneliness 
of  the  man  who  is  "down  and  out."  He  now  began 
for  the  first  time  to  turn  his  talent  to  account  by 
submitting  stories  to  the  popular  magazines.  Seeking 
a  nom  de  guerre,  he  casually  picked  up  a  newspaper,  and 
the  account  of  a  fashionable  ball  which  it  contained  fur 
nished  him  the  name  "  Henry."  For  initial,  he  chose  O — 
because  it  was  the  easiest  of  all  letters  to  write !  It  was 
inevitable  that  this  provocative  and  exclamatory  O  should 

[9] 


not  long  go  unchallenged.  In  answer  to  the  query  of  an 
inquisitive  editor,  Porter  replied  with  all  the  mock  solemn 
ity  of  a  Roman  augur  that  O  stood  for  Olivier,  the  French 
of  Oliver.  In  consequence,  some  of  his  earlier  stories  ac 
tually  appeared  with  the  signature :  "  Olivier  Henry." 

Soon  after  this,  that  rara  avis,  "  a  friend  with  a  little 
money,"  inveigled  Porter  into  joining  him  in  a  trip  to  Cen 
tral  America,  whither  he  was  bound  with  the  intention  of 
going  into  the  fruit  business.  There  was  not  enough 
money  between  them  to  enable  them  to  remain  long 
enough  in  Central  America  to  learn  the  "  whole  secret  of 
the  little  banana's  development";  the  banana  plantation 
vanished  into  thin  air,  and  Porter  drifted  back  to  Texas. 
While  in  Central  America,  though  he  saw  no  revolutions, 
he  took  an  absorbing  interest  in  localities  which,  in  their 
care-free  irresponsibility,  were  reminiscent  of  that  "  East 
of  Suez"  of  which  Kipling  so  lovingly  speaks.  His  life 
seemed  to  be  drifting  on  quite  aimlessly,  as  he  "  knocked 
around  among  the  consuls  and  the  refugees"  trying  to 
keep  cool,  sipping  refreshing  beverages,  and  hearing  in 
numerable  yarns  of  the  opera  bouffe  existence  that  is 
comically  played  out  in  certain  of  the  South  American  re 
publics.  In  reality  he  was  acquiring  an  intimate  knowl 
edge  of  the  peculiar  atmosphere,  exotic,  unique,  which  he 
afterwards  reproduced  with  such  a  mixture  of  veracity 
and  caricature  in  his  first  marked  success,  Cabbages  and 
Kings  (1904). 

Upon  his  return  to  Austin  in  February,  1897,  Porter 
found  his  wife  seriously  ill ;  and  until  her  death  in  July  27, 
1897,  he  was  scarcely  a  moment  from  her  bedside.  Little 
is  known  of  his  life  in  Ohio  during  the  next  two  or  three 
years ;  certain  it  is  that  he  spent  nine  months  after  July, 

[10] 


1901,  in  Pittsburgh  at  the  home  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  P.  G. 
Roach,  the  maternal  grand  parents  of  his  only  daughter, 
Margaret,  born  in  1889,  who  was  then  living  with  them. 
It  was  during  this  period  that  his  brilliant  stories  so  at 
tracted  the  attention  of  Mr.  Gilman  Hall,  the  editor  of 
Ainslee's  Magazine,  that  he  offered  Porter  one  hundred  dol 
lars  apiece  for  twelve  stories  and  advised  him  to  move  to 
New  York.  In  1902  William  Sidney  Porter  entered  New 
York  and  likewise  entered  definitively  upon  a  career  fa 
miliar  to  millions  through  his  masterly  short  stories.  On 
November  27,  1907  he  was  married  to  Miss  Sarah  Lindsay 
Coleman,  of  Asheville,  North  Carolina.  Only  two  years  of 
true  happiness  were  his  portion.  William  Sidney  Porter 
died  in  New  York  City  on  June  5,  1910.  He  sleeps  in  the 
heart  of  the  mountains  he  loved  so  well.  His  fame  be 
longs  to  North  Carolina,  to  America,  and  to  the  world. 


It  is  probably  true  that  few  of  that  great  throng,  who 
revelled  in  the  whimsicalities  and  surprises  of  O.  Henry's 
stories  and  in  their  clamorous  eagerness  for  more  seemed 
insatiable,  realized  the  deliberate  and  subtle  art  of  this 
North  Carolina  master  of  the  short  story.  Yet  those  who 
are  familiar  with  his  life  as  well  as  those  who  have  closely 
studied  the  mechanics  of  his  craft,  know  that  he  was  re. 
lentless  in  his  devotion  to  his  art  and  mercilessly  unspar 
ing  of  his  own  pleasure,  recreation,  and  even  health  in  his 
pursuit  of  the  ultra-refinements  of  technic.  His  stories  are 
singularly  brief,  laconic,  pointed  ;  they  bristle  with  the  un 
expected  surprises  and  the  daring  denouements  of  the 
brilliantly  original  mind.  O.  Henry  was  an  artist  who, 
through  wide  travel  and  close  contact  with  many  phases 

[11] 


of  life,  was  enabled  to  endow  his  stories  with  inexhaustible 
variety  in  locale  and  racial  type.  Yet  his  touch  is  light, 
his  method  photographic;  geography  never  gets  in  the 
way  of  human  interest.  To  the  late  Harry  Peyton  Steger, 
who  purposed  writing  his  biography,  Porter  once  signifi 
cantly  remarked:  "People  say  I  know  New  York  well. 
Just  change  Twenty-third  Street  in  one  of  my  New  York 
stories  to  Main  Street,  rub  out  the  Flatiron  Building  and 
put  in  the  Town  Hall.  Then  the  story  will  fit  just  as  truly 
elsewhere.  At  least  I  hope  this  is  the  case  with  what 
I  write.  So  long  as  your  story  is  true  to  life,  the  mere 
change  of  local  color  will  set  it  in  the  East,  West,  South, 
or  North.  The  characters  in  the  'Arabian  Nights '  parade 
up  and  down  Broadway  at  midday,  or  Main  Street  in  Dal 
las,  Tex.".  In  this  brief  confession  rests  the  eternal  prin 
ciple  of  universal  art.  It  was  the  incomparable  gift  of  O. 
Henry  to  be  able  to  surprise,  discover,  and  image  forth  the 
pristine  humanity  of  the  local  incident ;  he  humanized  them 
temporal  into  the  eternal.  Life,  as  mirrored  in  his  fancy,  •} 
was  not  a  question  of  geography,  of  costume,  of  mere 
peculiarities  of  speech  or  twists  of  idiosyncracy.  "  Life," 
he  once  comically,  yet  most  veraciously  confessed,  "is 
made  up  of  sobs,  sniffles  and  smiles — with  sniffles  predomi 
nating." 

In  his  heart,  0.  Henry  was  a  pure  type  of  the  American 
romanticist  of  to-day.  Of  himself  he  was  thinking,  I  dare 
say,  when  he  wrote  the  words :  "  The  true  adventurer  goes 
forth  aimless  and  uncalculating  to  meet  and  greet  unknown 
fate."  Life  held  her  rich  surprises  in  store  for  him  at  every 
turn.  Bohemian  in  his  nature,  sympathetic  always  with 
the  under-dog,  restless  and  nomadic  in  his  temperament,  he 
sought  intercourse  with  the  "down  and  outers"  of  this 

[12] 


world — to  sense  the  color  of  their  lives,  to  catch  the  ro 
mance  of  their  story.  For  hours  he  would  chat  with  some 
derelict  of  the  docks,  some  drifting  waste  of  humanity — 
who  might  or  might  not  furnish  a  concrete  story,  but 
who  would  invariably  set  up  such  reactions  in  O.  Henry's 
mind  that  a  story  would  shape  itself  eventually  into  being. 
This  great  celebrant  of  New  York,  its  poetry  and  its 
prose,  its  color,  mystery,  and  romance,  knew  the  vast  city 
from  end  to  end,  from  attic  to  cellar.  "  When  I  first  came 
to  New  York,"  he  once  confessed,  "  I  spent  a  great  deal  of 
time  knocking  around  the  streets.  I  did  things  then  that 
I  wouldn't  think  of  doing  now.  I  used  to  walk  at  all  hours 
of  the  day  and  night  along  the  river  fronts,  through  Hell's 
Kitchen,  down  the  Bowery,  dropping  into  all  manner  of 
places,  and  talking  with  anyone  who  would  hold  converse 
with  me.  I  have  never  met  a  man  but  what  I  could  learn 
something  from  him.  He's  had  some  experiences  that  I 
have  not  had ;  he  sees  the  world  from  his  own  viewpoint. 
If  you  go  at  it  in  the  right  way,  the  chances  are  that  you 
can  extract  something  of  value  from  him.  But  whatever 
else  you  do,  don't  flash  a  pencil  and  a  note-book.  Either 
he  will  shut  up  or  he  will  become  a  Hall  Caine." 

It  was  in  this  way  and  no  other  that  O.  Henry  learned  to 
know  his  world  of  "stenographers,  musicians,  brokers, 
shop  girls,  space-rate  writers,  art  students,  wire  tappers 
and  other  people  who  lean  far  over  the  banister-rail  when 
the  door-bell  rings."  How  else  can  we  explain  the  mor 
dant  realism  of  "  The  Memento,"  revealing  the  scarifying 
disillusionment  of  the  world-worn  yet  romantic  young 
third-rate  actress  when  she  discovers  that  her  minister-hero 
is  no  better  than  the  "average  sensual  man?"  Or  the 
pathos  of  the  tribulations  of  Soapy,  the  tramp,  rampage- 
US] 


ously  trying  to  get  himself  arrested,  to  no  purpose ;  and  yet, 
when  the  Sabbath  bells  ring  Deace  and  repentance  into  his 
heart,  feeling  upon  his  shoulder  the  heavy  hand  of  the 
law,  banishing  the  vagrant  to  the  Island  for  thirty  days !  Or 
the  strange,  sentimental  code  of  Tildy  in  her  brief  debut — 
the  unnoticed  scrub-waitress,  exalted  to  the  seventh  heaven 
of  romantic  bliss  when  a  drunken  boarder  "insults"  her 
with  an  unpunished  caress,  and  then  plunged  into  the 
depths  of  woe  when  he  afterwards  apologizes?  "  He  ain't 
anything  of  a  gentleman,"  wails  the  disconsolate  Tildy, 
"  or  he  wouldn't  of  apologized." 

It  has  not  been  sufficiently  recognized  by  the  critics  that 
0.  Henry  possessed  very  distinct  gifts  as  a  dramatist.  At 
the  time  of  his  death,  it  was  frequently  stated  that  "America 
claimed  O.  Henry  as  the  greatest  living  short-story  writer, 
with  the  exception  of  Rudyard  Kipling."  It  is  very  prob 
able  that,  had  he  lived,  he  would  have  seen  many  of  his 
stories  dramatized  and  produced  both  on  the  legitimate  and 
the  comedy  stages  and  in  motion  pictures.  A  number  of 
his  stories  since  his  death  have  been  seen  in  motion  pic 
tures;  and  his  two  plays:  Alias  Jimmy  Valentine,  a  dram 
atization  of  A  Retrieved  Reformation,  and  A  Double  De 
ceiver,  a  dramatization  of  A  Double-Dyed  Deceiver,  have 
been  successfully  produced  in  all  parts  of  the  United  States. 
Alias  Jimmy  Valentine  was  one  of  the  greatest  successes 
of  its  type  ever  put  upon  the  American  stage.  Porter  sold 
the  dramatization  rights  to  his  short-story  for  only  five 
hundred  dollars,  to  Mr.  Paul  Armstrong.  The  dramatist 
is  said  to  have  realized  fifty  thousand  dollars  from  the  pro 
duction,  and  the  producer  a  much  larger  sum. 

The  greatest  contribution  to  literary  technic  by  Ameri 
can  genius  has  lain,  thus  far,  in  the  domain  of  the  short- 

[14] 


story.  One  need  only  mention  Poe,  Hawthorne,  Harte,  and 
O.  Henry.  Poe  was  a  denizen  of  a  No-man's  Land  of  the 
imagination,  strangely  unrelated  to  the  soil  from  which  he 
sprang.  Hawthorne  was  a  Puritan  of  the  Puritans,  seeing 
life  in  its  ultimate  ethical  and  moral  aspects.  Harte  was 
an  artist  who  played  upon  a  single  string.  O.  Henry  was 
racy  of  the  soil,  instinct  with  sentiment,  romantic ;  versa 
tile  in  technic;  utterly  American;  wholly  human.  It  is 
not  unreasonable  to  premise  that  America,  whose  great 
writers  have  virtually  originated,  created,  and  perfected 
the  art  of  short-story  writing,  will  make  her  first  signi 
ficant  contribution  to  great  drama  in  the  field  of  the  one- 
act  play,  the  type  of  dramatic  art  which  has  already  reach 
ed  such  a  high  degree  of  excellence  in  European  art. 
Mr.  Norman  Hackett,  the  able  and  delightful  actor,  who 
has  starred  in  Professor  Donald  Stuart's  dramatization  of 
O.  Henry's  A  Double-Dyed  Deceiver,  in  an  address  delivered 
at  Greensboro,  on  October  18,  1913,  paid  high  tribute  to 
O.  Henry's  genius  as  a  dramatist.  In  Speaking  of  O. 
Henry  as  a  man  of  letters,  Mr.  Hackett  said :  "  His  instinct 
and  viewpoint  were  essentially  dramatic,  and  in  his  short- 
stories  he  employed  the  technic  of  the  dramatist,  with  its 
directness  of  approach,  elimination  of  unessential  details  and 
the  convergence  of  all  lines  straight  to  a  dramatic  conclusion. 
His  writings  form  a  rich  mine  of  dramatic  material  which 
is  now  being  recognized  as  such  and  utilized.  Why  should 
the  man  have  been  so  sure  in  his  dramatic  instinct  ?  What 
was  there  in  his  life  that  developed  this  instinct  ?  It  was 
simply  that  he  knew  the  drama  of  life  itself.  From  a  cos 
mopolitan  experience,  complex,  bewildering,  soul-marking ; 
matured  by  wide  travel,  strengthened  by  actual  contact 
with  adversity  and  discouragement,  the  whims  of  fickle 

[15] 


fortune  as  well  as  the  satisfaction  of  final  triumph;  his 
spirit  was  tempered  and  sweetened  through  an  understand 
ing  and  vision  of  human  misery  as  of  human  greatness.  It 
was  just  because  of  his  reticence,  of  a  nature  naturally  re 
tiring,  that  he  was  able  to  stand  on  the  street  corner  and 
watch  the  endless  procession  of  complex  life  sweep  by,  see 
ing  and  understanding  it  in  all  its  dramatic  richness  and 
variety." 

It  is  this  quality  of  reticence  which  impressed  all  who 
knew  him,  even  his  most  intimate  friends — even  The  One 
Who  Knew  Him  Best.  "  To  meet  him  for  the  first  time," 
said  Mr.  Richard  Duffy,  "  you  felt  his  most  notable  quality 
to  be  reticence,  not  a  reticence  of  social  timidity,  but  a  re 
ticence  of  deliberateness.  If  you  also  were  observing,  you 
would  soon  understand  that  his  reticence  proceeded  from 
the  fact  that  civilly  yet  masterfully  he  was  taking  in  every 
item  of  the  '  you '  being  presented  to  him  to  the  accom 
paniment  of  convention's  phrases  and  ideas,  together  with 
the  'you'  behind  this  presentation.  It  was  because  he 
was  able  thus  to  assemble  and  sift  all  the  multifarious  ele 
ments  of  a  personality  with  sleight-of-hand  swiftness  that 
you  find  him  characterizing  a  person  or  a  neighborhood  in 
a  sentence  or  two ;  and  once  I  heard  him  characterize  a 
list  of  editors  he  knew  each  in  a  phrase."  In  an  incident 
which  occurred  during  one  of  Porter's  sojourns  in  Western 
North  Carolina,  I  can  personally  vouch  for  his  constitu 
tional  shyness.  I  was  most  eager  to  have  him  make  the 
principal  address  before  the  State  Literary  and  Historical 
Association  of  North  Carolina  in  1908.  I  knew  of  his  shy 
ness — but  hoped  against  hope.  At  my  instance,  the  invita 
tion  of  the  Association  was  extended  to  him  through  the 
Secretary,  by  letter.  Porter  declined,  courteously  but  most 

[16] 


firmly,  by  wire.  He  was  too  shy  to  face  the  music, 
the  tumult  and  the  shouting.  I  have  realized,  through 
long  study  of  the  man's  art  and  personality— though 
it  was  never  given  me  to  know  him  face  to  face,— that 
his  reticence  had  two  distinct  rnanifestions.  Will  Por 
ter  took  great  pride  in  the  fact,  and  it  was  a  fact  often  re 
peated  by  him,  that  every  line  he  had  ever  written  could 
be  read  in  the  family  circle.  I  think  nothing  could  express 
the  purity  of  the  man's  soul  better  than  that  Surprise  has 
often  been  expressed  that  none  of  his  stories  were  as 
sociated  with  the  scenes  of  his  childhood,  or  at  least  that 
the  situation  was  not  laid  in  North  Carolina.  It  is  the 
innate  reticence  of  the  man — his  evasion  of  intimacy  with 
others,  his  guardianship  of  the  sanctity  of  personality— 
which  explains  his  avoidance  of  the  autobiographical  in  his 
stories.  His  feelings  about  his  birthplace  were  too  tender 
ly  intimate  to  himself,  his  sentiment  for  the  scene  of  his 
greatest  happiness  in  the  purple  twilight  of  the  great 
mountains  too  sacred,  to  be  exposed  for  American  daws  to 
peck  at.  Yet  once  he  broke  his  unalterable  rule— in  Let  Me 
Feel  Your  Pulse;  and  who  that  has  been  there  does  not  re 
call  the  scene  near  Asheville  summoned  by  the  following 
words:  "John  has  a  country  house  seven  miles  from  Pine- 
ville.  It  is  at  an  altitude  and  on  the  Blue  Ridge  Mountains 
in  a  state  too  dignified  to  be  dragged  into  this  controversy. 
,  .  Amaryllis  met  and  greeted  us.  .  .  It  was  about 
twilight  and  the  mountains  came  up  nobly  to  Miss  Murfree's 
description  of  them."  Lured  by  stories  of  a  wonderful  flow 
er  with  mystical  curative  powers,  he  and  the  old  doctor 
"hunted  the  cure-all  plant  among  the  mountains  and  valleys 
of  the  Blue  Ridge.  Together  we  toiled  up  steep  heights  so 
slippery  with  fallen  autumn  leaves  that  we  had  to  catch  every 

[17] 


sapling  and  branch  within  our  reach  to  keep  from  falling. 
We  waded  through  gorges  and  chasms,  breast-deep  with 
laurel  and  ferns;  we  followed  the  banks  of  mountain 
streams  for  miles,  we  wound  our  way  like  Indians  through 
brakes  of  pine — roadside,  hillside,  riverside,  mountain  side 
we  explored  in  our  search  for  the  miraculous  plant."  At 
last  he  found  it — and  his  heart  is  laid  bare  for  a  fleeting  in 
stant  in  the  cry :  "  What  rest  more  remedial  than  to  sit 
with  Amaryllis  in  the  shade,  and,  with  a  sixth  sense,  read 
the  wordless  Theocritan  idyl  of  the  gold-bannered  blue 
mountains  marching  orderly  into  the  dormitories  of  the 
night?" 

The  love  of  Will  Porter  for  his  dd  home  State,  his  feel 
ing  of  an  intimate  bond  with  the  place  of  his  birth,  best 
find®  expression  in  his  whimsical  and  quaint  letters  "  back 
home"  from  Texas,  a  few  of  which  have  been  printed. 
After  writing  hundreds  of  short-stories,  he  at  last  resolved 
to  write  a  novel  into  which  he  intended  to  put  the  very 
best  of  himself  with  the  greatest  art  and  skill  at  his  com 
mand.  It  was  to  be  a  true  story — the  actual  revelation  of 
the  life  of  a  man—"  nothing  but  the  truth."  It  was  not  to 
be  a  mere  autobiography — the  hero  was  a  distinct  personal 
ity.  But  it  is  in  the  highest  degree  significant  that  the 
scene  of  the  story  was  to  be  laid  in  a  "somnolent  little  South 
ern  town  "—the  Greensboro— who  doubts  it  ?— of  his  boy 
hood  days.  And  who  doubts  that— under  cover  of  his  denial 
that  it  was  to  be  pure  autobiography — he  meant  to  tell  his 
own  story.  Of  his  "hero"  he  says>  in  words  which  betray 
him :  "  I'm  going  to  take  him  through  all  the  main  phases  of 
life — wild  adventure,  city,  society,  something  of  the  *  under 
world,'  and  among  many  characteristic  planes  of  the  phases. 
I  want  him  to  acquire  all  the  sophistication  that  experience 

[18] 


can  give  him,  and  always  preserve  his  individual  honest 
human  view,  and  have  him  tell  the  truth  about  everything." 
North  Carolina  is  the  poorer  that  death  robbed  the  world 
of  this  true  record  of  a  man—William  Sidney  Porter. 

In  the  spring  of  1905,  the  mother  of  Miss  Sarah  Lindsay 
Coleman  on  returning  to  her  home  at  Weaverville,  after  a  vis 
it  to  Greensboro,  casually  remarked  to  her  daughter:  "Your 
old  friend  Will  Porter  is  a  writer.  He  lives  in  New  York 
and  writes  under  the  name  of  O.  Henry."  The  name  stirred 
Miss  Coleman's  memory :  "  0.  Henry !  In  my  desk  lay  Mad 
am  Bo-Peep  and  I  loved  her.  I  wrote  0.  Henry  a  note.  '  If 
you  are  not  Will  Porter  don't  bother  to  answer,'  I  said.  He 
bothered  to  answer."  In  her  letter  she  had  spoken  of  her 
desire  to  write — later  to  find  free  expression  when  she  won 
a  name  for  herself  in  *'  Sarah  Lindsay."  In  answer  came 
the  words:  "Attend— oh,  princess  of  the  Bluest  Ridge! 
Fate  has  cheated  you  out  of  the  life  you  were  made  for. 
You  have  a  warm  heart,  and  talent  and  ambition.  Right 
here  is  the  only  market  for  them  in  this  country.  If  I  didn't 
think  you  had  the  genius  to  win  the  game  I'd  never  advise 
you  to  try.  Go  out  and  talk  to  the  tomato  vines  and  the  moon 
about  it.  They  are  good  counselors."  Prophetic  were  the 
added  words :  "  I  don't  know  that  I  can  tell  you  what  the 
boy  developed  into  except  to  say — sincerely — into  one  surely 
no  better,  unsatisfied,  and  never  forgetting  the  little  girl 
next  door."  Mrs.  Porter  herself  has  recently  given  us  a 
little  glimpse  into  that  sequel  to  a  boyhood  romance, 
"'Some  day  when  you  are  not  real  busy,'  further  ran  his  reply 
"  won't  you  sit  down  at  your  desk  where  you  keep  those  anti 
quated  stories  and  write  to  me.  I'd  be  so  pleased  to  hear 
something  about  what  the  years  have  done  for  you,  and 
what  you  think  about  when  the  tree  frogs  begin  to  holler 

[19] 


in  the  evening/  Thus  after  many  years  a  boy  and  girl  friend 
ship  was  renewed.  Last  in  my  list  (of  favorite  stories), 
but  first  in  my  heart,  is  Adventures  in-  Neurasthenia,  the 
new  title — Let  Me  Feel  Your  Pulse — the  publishers  gave. 
It  brings  back  the  little  office  in  Asheviller  the  pad,  empty 
except  for  the  title  and  the  words :  *  So  I  went  to  a  doctor.' " 
The  romance  of  youth  came  true— and  days  spent  in  West 
ern  North  Carolina  were  the  happiest  days  of  his  life. 

It  was  eagerness  to  surpass  himself,  the  straining  upward 
toward  higher  achievements,  that  brought  him  low.  The 
solitude  of  the  mountains  silenced  his  brain;  he  fled  to- 
New  York  for  the  stimulus  of  cosmopolitan  struggle.  His 
description  of  New  York  is  significant:  "  It  is  a  combina 
tion  of  Delilah,  green  Chartreuse,  Beethoven,  chloral,  and 
John  L.  in  his  best  days."  It  wooed  O.  Henry  to  its  bosom 
"with  the  subtlety  of  a  siren" — and  like  the  Lorelei  swept 
him  to  destruction.  When  genius  scintillated  in  his  brain 
and  invention  ran  madly  from  his  pen,  New  York  was  the 
queen  of  Manhattan,  the  siren  of  the  world.  When  health 
failed  him,  invention  flagged,  and  illness  came,  he  wonder- 
ingly  cried :  "  I  don't  know  what  is  wrong  with  Broadway, 
But  it  has  lost  its  glitter."  Surely  this  man,  this  genius, 
"went  climbing  to  his  fall." 

New  York  was  a  siren  with  the  meretricious  glitter  of  a 
Great  White  Way.  North  Carolina  was  a  mother,  with  the 
solace  of  the  cradle  of  the  great  mountains.  And  even 
when  he  was  most  remote  in  distance  from  his  native 
State  —  and  perhaps  uncertain  of  his  return — it  was 
to  the  home  land,  to  North  Carolina,  that  his  heart 
unerringly  turned.  In  a  letter  to  me,  Mr.  Al.  J.  Jen 
nings  of  Oklahoma  City,  said:  "I  knew  'Bill'  Porter 
perhaps  better  than  any  other  man  on  earth,  before  he 

[20] 


wrote  his  Cabbages  and  Kings.  We  sat  under  man 
grove  trees  in  the  little  town  of  Gorilla  in  the  heat  of  the 
sun,  looking  far  out  across  the  billowy  sea,  trying  to  fath 
om  what  might  be  doing  in  the  old  United  States.  He 
talked  of  North  Carolina  and  childhood ;  I,  of  my  native 
State,  Virginia;  but  neither  asked  the  other  why  he  was  in 
Central  America.  Porter  was  a  child  of  fortune,  I  was  a  fugi 
tive  from  justice.  He  was  not  aware  of  that  fact.  He  only 
knew  me  as  a  man,  and  I  can  safely  say  that  to  his  dying  day 
he  loved  me."  One  who  knew  Porter  intimately  all  his 
life  recently  pointed  out  that  O.  Henry,  while  a  Bohemian 
and  a  cosmopolite  in  a  sense,  did  not  believe  that  it  was 
possible  for  a  man  to  be  a  "cosmopolite  all  through." 
Nothing  could  better  express  his  own  feeling  for  his  native 
place,  we  are  convincingly  assured,  than  his  clever  story, 
A  Cosmopolite  in  a  Cafe.  "Just  as  the  hero  of  that  story 
fought  a  man  '  on  account  of  things  said  about  the  bum 
sidewalks  and  water  supply  of  the  place  he  come  from/  so 
would  0.  Henry,  who  was  an  artist  with  his  fists,  have 
fought  any  man  who  had,  in  his  presence,  spoken  evil  of 
Greensboro — for  'he  wouldn't  stand  for  no  knockin'  the 
place.' "  Underneath  the  banter  and  jest,  how  much  of  the 
true  love  of  the  man  for  his  South,  for  his  home,  lurk  in 
the  words  of  a  letter  recently  published:  "Can't  get  to 
loving  New  Yorkers.  Live  all  alone  in  a  great  big  two 
rooms  on  quiet  old  Irving  Place,  three  doors  from  Wash, 
living's  old  home.  Kind  of  lonesome.  Was  thinking  lately 
(since  the  April  moon  commenced  to  shine)  how  I'd  like  to 
be  down  South,  where  I  could  happen  over  to  Miss  Ethel's 
or  Miss  Sallie's  and  sit  on  the  porch — not  in  a  chair — on 
the  edge  of  the  porch,  and  lay  my  straw  hat  on  the  steps 
and  lay  my  head  back  against  the  honeysuckle  on  the  post 

[21] 


— and  just  talk.  And  Miss  Ethel  would  go  in  directly  (they 
say  presently  up  here)  and  bring  out  the  guitar.  She 
would  complain  that  the  E  string  was  broken,  but  no  one 
would  believe  her ;  and  pretty  soon  all  of  us  would  be  sing 
ing  the  *  Swanee  River'  and  *  In  the  Evening  by  the  Moon 
light  '  and — oh,  gol  darn  it,  what's  the  use  of  wishing." 

Many  are  the  stories  told  of  O.  Henry,  of  his  Bohemian 
taste,  his  quaint  fancy,  his  innate  shyness,  his  love  for  the 
play  upon  words,  his  tremendous  surplus  of  temperament, 
his  skill  at  repartee.  Familiar  to  all  is  his  remark  about 
Mr.  Walter  H.  Page,  as  editor  of  The  World's  Work,  that 
his  letters  of  rejection  were  so  admirable  that  they  could  be 
discounted  at  the  bank.  His  rules  for  story-writing  are  fa 
mous  :  "  Rule  I  of  story-writing  is  to  write  stories  that  please 
yourself.  There  is  no  Rule  II."  Facetiously  asked  what  Rule 
II  would  be,  if  there  were  one,  he  replied :  "Sell  the  story." 
I  was  told  by  a  member  of  the  party  that  on  one  occasion, 
Porter  and  his  wife  and  some  friends  were  marooned 
at  a  little  wayside  station  with  no  fire  in  the  stove  in  the 
middle  of  winter,  waiting  for  a  belated  train.  After  a  long 
wait  in  dead  silence,  with  much  shivering  and  chattering 
of  teeth,  Porter  cheerfully  remarked :  "  Many  are  cold,  but 
few  are  frozen."  Just  after  the  ceremony,  when  Mr.  Por 
ter  was  married  to  Miss  Coleman,  there  came  that  ghastly 
pause  when  no  one  speaks  or  knows  just  what  to  say. 
Mrs.  Coleman  was  standing  close  by  with  a  wistful  look  on 
her  face;  but  Mr.  Porter  broke  the  awkward  pause  by 
grasping  his  mother-in-law's  hand  and  with  an  enthusiastic 
shake,  saying:  "I'm  delighted  to  welcome  you  into  the 
family."  The  minister  at  the  wedding  was  very  nervous, 
and  was  trying  to  chaff  Porter  into  a  like  nervousness — to 
which  Porter  bluffly  replied:  "Oh,  you  can't  fuss  me  a  bit, 

[22] 


I've  got  a  ring  in  every  pocket."  Wit  and  repartee  with 
him  were  a  passion— a  ruling  passion  strong  even  in  death. 
"  He  was  looking  toward  the  window ;  there  was  no  sign 
yet  of  dawn.  He  rolled  his  head  back  toward  the  dim  hos 
pital  lamp  and  whispered— the  last  words  he  ever  uttered : 
'  Turn  up  the  lights :  I  don't  want  to  go  home  in  the  dark.' 
Just  before  his  spirit  mingled  with  the  peaceful  ocean  of  un 
numbered  souls,  he  looked  up  and  gave  them  one  of  his 
quick  smiles.  And  on  that  smile  he  died." 

After  his  death  was  found  in  a  note-book  the  following 
poem,  The  Crucible,  or  After  the  Battle,  which  he  had 

written : 

Hard  ye  may  be  in  the  tumult, 

Red  to  your  battle  hilts ; 
Blow  give  for  blow  in  the  foray, 

Cunningly  ride  in  the  tilts ; 

But  when  the  roaring  is  ended, 

Tenderly,  unbeguiled, 
Turn  to  a  woman  a  woman's 

Heart,  and  a  child's  to  a  child. 

Test  of  the  man,  if  his  worth  be 

In  accord  with  the  ultimate  plan, 
That  he  be  not,  to  his  marring, 

Always  and  utterly  man ; 
That  he  bring  out  of  the  tumult, 

Fitter  and  undefiled, 
To  woman  the  heart  of  woman, 

To  children  the  heart  of  a  child. 

Good  when  the  bugles  are  ranting 

It  is  to  be  iron  and  fire ; 
Good  to  be  oak  in  the  foray, 

Ice  at  a  guilty  desire. 
[23] 


But  when  the  battle  Is  over 

(Marvel  and  wonder  the  while) 
Give  to  a  woman  a  woman's 

Heart,  and  a  child's  to  a  child 

His  little  poem,  Irony,  which  was  written  at  his  daugh 
ter's  request  for  her  school  paper,  is  somehow  subtly  charac 
teristic  and  expressive  of  the  man : — 

I  called  on  Fame :  the  office  boy 
Said :  "  Please  send  in  your  name." 
"  Indeed  I  have  none,"  I  replied. 
And  so,  away  I  came. 

I  called  on  Wealth :  I  was  required 

To  pay  an  entrance  fee ; 
"  I  have  no  money,"  I  replied, 

And  left  immediately. 

I  called  on  Love :  it  was  decreed 

That  first  I  show  my  heart. 
"  She  has  it,"  was  all  I  could  say : 

And  then  I  did  depart. 

III. 

At  the  time  of  his  death  and  for  a  number  of  years  pre 
ceding,  O.  Henry  was  the  most  popular  writer  of  short 
stories  in  the  United  States.  He  vied  with  Rudyard  Kip 
ling  for  the  honor  and  reward  of  receiving  the  highest  rate 
of  remuneration  for  short  stories.  His  stories  have  been 
translated  into  foreign  languages,  notably  into  French, 
German  and  Spanish ;  have  had  wide  range  in  England ; 
have  been  dramatized  and  have  achieved  great  popular  suc- 

[24] 


, 


cess,  both  on  the  legitimate  stage  and  in  motion  picture 
plays.  During  a  sojourn  in  Berlin  in  1911, 1  well  recall 
that  the  lecture  of  Dr.  C.  Alphonso  Smith,  his  biographer, 
on  The  American  Short  Story  delivered  at  the  University 
of  Berlin  attracted  exceptional  attention  and  led  to  the  im 
mediate  publication  of  certain  of  O.  Henry's  stories  in  Ger 
man  translation  in  Berlin  periodicals.  I  recall  another 
significant  incident  in  my  own  experience.  Upon  one  oc 
casion,  I  was  dining  at  the  Savage  Club  in  London  with  a 
friend,  an  English  publisher.  At  the  same  table  were  seated 
two  other  men  who  were  strangers  to  me.  My  friend  and 
I  were  talking  animatedly  of  0.  Henry,  and  during  a  momen 
tary  pause  in  the  conversation,  we  noticed  that  the  others 
were  also  talking  animatedly  of  O.  Henry.  At  once  we  all 
began  to  talk  at  the  same  time  about  0.  Henry.  All  three 
were  publishers,  all  three  Englishmen,  all  three  eager  to  se 
cure  the  copyright  on  O.  Henry's  works !  Shortly  after 
wards,  one  of  these  three  publishers  brought  out  Cabbages 
and  Kings  in  England ;  and  many  of  0.  Henry's  stories  have 
since  been  published  in  England,  notably  in  the  magazine 
edited  by  the  late  Robert  Barr.  In  comparing  O.  Henry 
with  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  a  writer  in  the  Spectator,  after 
according  high  praise  to  O.  Henry's  individual  point  of  view 
and  "remarkable  gift  of  literary  expression,"  pointed  out 
that  his  "close  contact  with  the  raw  edges  of  life  never  dull 
ed  his  romantic  gaze  or  extinguished  his  belief  in  human 
ity."  O.  Henry's  A  Municipal  Report  has  often  been  pro 
nounced,  by  competent  critics,  to  be  the  finest  short-story 
ever  written  in  the  English  language.  The  late  Professor  H. 
T.  Peck  said  of  0.  Henry :  "He  has  constructed  a  panorama 
of  the  times  in  which  we  live.  At  heart  he  is  an  optimist, 
who  believes  that  in  every  human  being  there  is  to  be  found 

[25] 


something  good,  however  mixed  it  may  be  with  other 
qualities ;  and  like  a  true  American  he  can  see  and  chuckle 
at  it  all."  In  speaking  before  the  State  Literary  and  Histori 
cal  Association  of  North  Carolina  in  1911,  his  biographer  em 
ployed  these  impressive  words:  "What  Helper,  of  Mocksville, 
did  for  the  economic  argument  against  slavery,  O.  Henry,  of 
Greensboro,  did  for  the  four  million  of  New  York.  The 
one  appealed  to  the  head,  the  other  to  the  heart.  But  both 
appeals  were  national  and  the  services  of  both  men  should 
be  capitalized  in  our  history  for  future  generations."  Per 
haps  the  most  remarkable  feature  of  0.  Henry's  career  as  a 
man  of  letters  is  found  in  the  fact  that  a  boy,  born  in  North 
Carolina,  who  spent  the  first  forty  years  of  his  life  in  the 
South  and  the  Southwest,  should  have  become  the  most 
brilliant  and  adequate  interpreter  in  American  literature 
of  the  atmosphere  and  the  common  life  of  New  York  City. 
The  philosophy  of  the  man  and  his  writings  is  best  ex 
pressed  in  his  words  in  outlining  the  theme  of  a  play,  The 
World  and  the  Door,  which  he  was  dramatizing  from  one  of 
his  own  stories  at  the  time  of  his  death :  "  My  purpose  is  to 
show  that  in  every  human  heart  there  is  an  innate  tenden 
cy  towards  respectable  life,  that  even  those  who  have  fal 
len  to  the  lowest  step  of  the  social  ladder  would,  if  they 
could,  get  back  to  the  higher  life.  The  innate  propensity 
of  human  nature  is  to  choose  the  good  instead  of  the  bad." 
0.  Henry  was  a  great  Southern  genius  and  a  great  nation 
al  genius.  But  greater  than  all,  he  was  profoundly  hu 
man  in  his  art.  It  was  his  nature  to  care  for  the  lowly  rather 
than  for  the  exalted.  "  I  wander  abroad  at  night,"  he  says 
in  one  of  his  stories,  "  seeking  idiosyncracies  in  the  masses 
and  truth  in  the  heavens  above."  This  male  Scheherazade 
of  the  new  Bagdad-on-the- Subway  defiantly  espoused  the 

[26] 


cause  of  the  census-taker,  that  wiser  man  in  his  larger 
estimate  of  human  interest  who  proclaims  that  the  people 
of  New  York  City  really  worth  noticing  are  not  the  Four 
Hundred  but  the  four  million.  0.  Henry  is  the  narrator 
and  the  celebrant  of  the  life  of  the  great  city  in  the  parks 
and  open  squares,  the  cheap  restaurants  and  bowery 
haunts,  the  crowded  department  stores  and  the  tiny  homes 
of  the  aerial  flat-dwellers.  The  poor  and  the  humble,  the 
hobo  and  the  shop-girl,  the  clerk  and  the  copper,  the  va 
grant  of  the  park,  the  derelict  of  the  bread  line,  the  flat 
dweller  and  the  commuter— these  were  the  favorite  sub 
jects  of  his  amused  and  loving  inquiry.  All  possessed  a 
vital,  an  absorbing  interest  for  him  because  they  were  real, 
human,  true.  Everywhere  this  errant  Bohemian  found  a 
human  interest  rich  in  magic  and  romance.  He  has  drawn 
with  artist's  hand  a  powerfully  imaginative  picture  of  the 
surprise,  the  mystery,  and  the  wealth  of  storied  interest  in 
the  life  of  the  New  Manhattan.  "  In  the  big  city  the  twin 
Spirits  Romance  and  Adventure  are  always  abroad  seeking 
worthy  wooers.  As  they  roam"  the  streets  they  slyly  peep  at 
us  and  challenge  us  in  twenty  different  guises.  Without 
knowing  why,  we  look  up  suddenly  to  see  in  a  window  a 
face  that  seems  to  belong  to  our  gallery  of  intimate  por 
traits  ;  in  a  sleeping  thoroughfare  we  hear  a  cry  of  agony 
and  fear  coming  from  an  empty  and  shuttered  house ;  in 
stead  of  at  our  familiar  curb  a  cab-driver  deposits  us  before 
a  strange  door,  which  one,  with  a  smile,  opens  for  us  and 
bids  us  enter ;  a  slip  of  paper,  written  upon,  flutters  down 
to  our  feet  from  the  high  lattices  of  chance ;  we  exchange 
glances  of  instantaneous  hate,  affection  and  fear  with 
hurrying  strangers  in  the  passing  crowds ;  a  sudden  souse 
of  rain— and  our  umbrella  may  be  sheltering  the  daughter 

[27] 


of  the  Full  Moon  and  first  cousin  of  the  Sidereal  System ; 
at  every  corner  handkerchiefs  drop,  fingers  beckon,  eyes 
besiege,  and  the  lost,  the  lonely,  the  rapturous,  the  mysteri 
ous,  the  perilous,  changing  clues  of  adventure  are  slipped 
into  our  fingers." 

This  quality  of  inextinguishable  romance,  this  chivalric 
note— these  are  the  traits  of  the  Southerner,  of  the  North 
Carolinian.  It  was  here  in  North  Carolina  that  he  found 
the  sweetheart  of  his  youth— here  that  he  found  surcease 
from  metropolitan  care  in  the  enfolding  shelter  of  the  Blue 
Ridge — it  is  here  that  he  sleeps.  As  a  Southerner,  he  loved 
the  South ;  as  an  artist,  he  realized  her  amiable  vices,  her 
lovable  weaknesses.  Uncle  Bushrod,  that  dusky  guardian 
of  the  accolade,  faithfully  holding  "  Marse  Robert "  true  to 
the  romantic  ideals  of  his  youth ;  the  ultimate  emancipa 
tion  of  "  Billy,"  after  years  of  solitary  struggle  under  the 
consuming  blight  of  an  overshadowing  parental  tradition ; 
the  excitement  of  "Thimble,  Thimble,"  with  its  convin 
cing  denouement  of  the  final  identification  of  the  Northern 
brother  by  his  business  practicality,  of  the  Southern  brother 
by  the  integrity  of  his  plighted  word ;  the  social  comedy  of 
that  typical  Southern  magazine  of  the  old  school,  The  Rose 
of  Dixie,  which  reproduces  an  article  by  T.  Roosevelt — 
known  in  Georgia  not  as  Rough  Rider,  author,  or  President, 
but  only  through  his  relationship  to  the  Bullock  family ;  the 
tender  sentiment  mingled  with  dark  irony  of  A  Municipal 
Report;  the  quaint  humor  and  light  touch  of  A n  Adventure 
in  Neurasthenia,  reminiscent  of  the  Land  of  the  Sky — stories 
such  as  these  testify  to  0.  Henry's  strong  and  tender  feel 
ing  for  the  South,  his  admiration  for  her  finer  qualities,  his 
faculty  of  kindly  raillery  at  foibles  that  are  passing  with 
a  passing  age.  Like  another  great  humorist,  Alphonse 

[28] 


Daudet,  who  amused  a  world  with  delicate  satire  of  his 
beloved  South,  O.  Henry  let  his  light  raillery  play  with 
kindly  light  over  the  South  of  his  own  birth — her  manners, 
her  customs,  and  her  people. 

North  Carolina  gives  to  posterity  her  great  writer  of  this 
new  time,  secure  in  the  originality  of  his  genius,  the 
uniqueness  of  his  art,  the  humanity  of  his  spirit.  Upon 
the  memorial,  dedicated  to  his  memory  in  token  of  the  ad 
miration,  the  gratitude,  and  the  love  of  a  people,  are  in 
scribed  these  ineffaceable  words  of  his,  profoundly,  mutely 
expressive  of  his  own  art  and  humanity : 

"  He  no  longer  saw  a  rabble, 
But  his  brothers  seeking  the  ideal." 

ARCHIBALD  HENDERSON. 
CHAPEL  HILL,  N.  C,  November,  1914. 


[29] 


O.  HENRY:  IN  MEMORIAM. 
(DIED  JUNE  5,  1910.) 

In  the  twilight  of  the  city,  as  I  dreamed,  as  I  dreamed. 

Tangled  shadows  fell  fantastic  on  the  ever-pulsing  street. 
Little  lights  began  to  glimmer  through  the  filmy  veil  of 

night, 

And  I  knew  that  work  had  ended  by  the  homeward- 
turning  feet. 
Then  a  tide  of  men  and  women  rolled  before  me  from  the 

west, 

Breaking  over  into  houses,  into  hall  and  alley  swirled ; 
Back  from  shop  and  store  and  work-room  to  the  refuge 

of  the  home ; 

Through  the  sluices  of  the  city  beat  the  power  of  the 
world. 


And  I  wished  I  had  his  vision — he  who  saw  and  under 
stood, 
And  he  watched  the  men  and  women  on  the  stage  of 

everyday. 
All  the  wrangling  and  the  toiling  and  the  bungling  of  the 

cast, 
While  it  potters  through  the  eons  in  the  great  Creation 

Play. 

How  I  longed  to  sense  the  meaning  of  the  God  behind  it  all, 
Of  the  spirit  as  it  brightens  through  the  coarsest  human 

flesh. 

Of  the  music,  sweetly  hidden  in  the  roaring  city  din, 
Of  the  single  purpose  showing  in  the  tangle  of  the  mesh. 


[30] 


Far  below  me  boomed  the  thunder  and  the  tidal  wave  beat 

high, 

On  its  crest  I  saw  the  murmurs  of  the  passing  comedy ; 
Shopgirls,  idlers,  peddlers,  salesmen,  errand  boys  with  lag 
ging  feet, 

Kind  and  sad  and  hostile  faces  in  the  swelling  human  sea. 
And  in  each  I  felt  a  story  worthy  of  the  master's  skill, 
Sensed  the  presence  of  the  passions  that  control  the  hu 
man  breast ; 

Knew  an  epic  lived  within  them,  dumb  waiting  to  be  told. 
But  a  mind  that  knew  the  meaning  slept  in  its  eternal 
rest. 


What  a  world  he  left  behind  him,  what  a  web  of  wonder 

tales! 
Fact  and  fiction  subtly  woven  on  the  spinning  wheel  of 

Truth! 

How  he  caught  the  key  of  living  in  the  noises  of  the  town, 
Major  music,  minor  dirges,  rhapsodies  of  Age  and  Youth ! 
In  the  twilight  of  the  city,  as  I  dreamed,  as  I  dreamed. 

Watching  that  eternal  drama  in  the  ever-pulsing  street, 
All  about  me  seemed  to  murmur  of  the  master  passed  away. 
And  his  requiem  was  sounded  in  the  city's  fever  beat. 
— Elias  Lieberman  in  The  New  York  Times. 


[31] 


THE  WORKS  OF  O.  HENRY. 

Cabbages  and  Kings.  N.  Y.,  McClure,  Phillips  &  Co., 
1904. 

The  Four  Million.    N.  Y.,  McClure,  Phillips  &  Co.,  1906. 

The  Trimmed  Lamp.  N.  Y.,  McClure,  Phillips  &  Co., 
1907. 

Heart  of  the  West.    N.  Y.,  The  McClure  Co.,  1907. 

The  Gentle  Grafter.    N.  Y.,  The  McClure  Co.,  1908. 

The  Voice  of  the  City.    N.  Y.,  The  McClure  Co.,  1908. 

Roads  of  Destiny.    N.  Y.,  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1909. 

Options.    N.  Y.,  Harper  &  Bros.,  1909. 

Whirligigs.    N.  Y.,  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1910. 

Strictly  Business.    N.  Y.,  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1910. 

Let  Me  Feel  Your  Pulse.  N.  Y.,  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co., 
1910. 

The  Gift  of  the  Wise  Men.  N.  Y.,  Doubleday,  Page  & 
Co.,  1910.  (First  Separate  Edition.) 

Sixes  and  Sevens.    N.  Y.,  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1911. 

Rolling  Stones.    N.  Y.,  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1912. 

' 


[32] 


O    HENRY  ON  VACATION  IN  WESTERN  NORTH  CAROLINA 


U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


